By IANS,
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday rescued Princess Fatima Fouzia, the 65-year-old grand-daughter of Hyderabad’s seventh Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, from a two-year jail term in a case of bouncing of a Rs.10.115 million cheque she issued in July 2007.
A bench of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice A.K. Patnaik condoned the Nizam’s grand-daughter’s jail term after her counsel P. Nageshwar Rao informed the court that Princess Fatima Fouzia has already reached an out-of court settlement with her creditor, Rajesh Malhotra of Chennai.
As Malhotra’s counsel G. Sivabalamurugan confirmed Rao’s statement, the bench set aside the jail term imposed by a magisterial court in Chennai.
According to Sivabalamurugan, under the compromise reached between the Nizam’s heiress and his client Malhotra, Fouzia is expected to transfer two or three pieces of her landed properties in Hyderabad to Malhotra.
Besides, she has also given some cheques towards discharge of her debts, Sivabalamurugan told the bench.
For the cheque bounced, the Nizam’s heiress was asked to pay a compensation of Rs.1 million to Malhotra and was also awarded a year long jail term by a magisterial court in Chennai.
Her appeal against the magisterial court’s ruling was first dismissed by the sessions court and later by the Madras High Court, which increased the jail term to two years and the compensation to Rs.10.115 million.
The heiress approached the apex court against the Madras High Court ruling, but before her lawsuit could be taken up for hearing, she reached an out-of court settlement with Malhotra.
As per her lawsuit, Malhotra had been given a signed but blank cheque by Fouzia towards settlement of a credit of Rs.1.25 million that Malhotra had given her husband the late Nawab Nadir Ali Mirza in March 1991 for “a transaction pertaining to property development”.